45th SCAC
SCAC suspended its physical worship service and gathering for more than two months during the lockdown because of the pandemic. Its attendance dropped greatly when in-person worship service resumed later. Worship services for churches in the Kuching District were suspended again in November under the CMCO, to be resumed after December when allowed.
The SCAC Board of Statistics revealed that the total number of worshippers for the 131 churches in Sarawak in July this year was 13,936 worshippers, a drop of 57.1% compared to the same period last year (which was 19,015 persons). Because some churches haven’t started in-person Sunday School yet, the Children Sunday School attendance recorded only 2,231 students, a drop of about 72.1% or 5,765 students less than last year.
However, the Board of Statistics also pointed out that in July this year, 25 churches had online live worship services and there was a click rate of 20,431 and an expected audience figure of 51,077. For the English District, 2 churches had online live worship services with a click rate of 1,426 and an expected audience figure of 3,595. For BM churches there were 5 live broadcasts, with a click rate of 600 and an estimated audience figure of 1,500. In total, the 32 churches had a total click rate of 22,457 with an expected audience figure of about 56,142 (for evaluation purposes, the expected audience figure is estimated to be 2.5 viewers per TV set).
Adding physical worship attendance and the click rate, the total number of worshippers was estimated to be 36,393. If the figure is accurate there were over 4,900 more worshippers compared to last year (32,951). Perhaps the number of online worshippers was higher than those attending physical worship. However, some people were not so optimistic.
Looking at the statistical trend for the past five years, attendance peaked in 2017. In 2017 there were 34,848 worshippers; the number declined over the next two years, with 34,407 in 2018 and 32,951 in 2019. Due to the pandemic this year, the number of worshippers decreased sharply to just one third.
Overview of SCAC
Currently SCAC records a total of 131 churches and assemblies: 119 churches, 22 preaching points and centres of which 120 worship in Chinese, 11 worship in English, and 25 have BM worship in addition to regular worship.
SCAC has 214 pastors: 184 pastors pastoring in churches, 10 retired pastors, 19 attachment pastors and 1 president. There are 61 local and overseas missionaries: 46 overseas missionaries and 15 local missionaries. In addition, there are 84 local preachers, and 116,147 members in the Book of Life.
The pandemic and lockdown are affecting the number of baptisms as well. There were 295 children baptisms, 655 less than the same period last year, a decrease of 69%; there were 383 adult baptisms, 615 fewer than the same period last year, a decrease of 62%.
In terms of collections, SCAC Treasurer, John Ting reported that, despite the pandemic, the total income was RM98,000 more than last year, an increase of 0.4%. However, the total expenditure over income was over RM260,000.